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What impact does the salt and lesser extent the sugar in the rub have on drying the meat? Does it negate the patdown of the meat to dry the surface? or does it further help by pulling the moisture to the surface where it can then evaporate?

What impact does the salt and lesser extent the sugar in the rub have on drying the meat? Does it negate the patdown of the meat to dry the surface? or does it further help by pulling the moisture to the surface where it can then evaporate?

The salt does cause the meat to "sweat" a little but it's not a problem and is a good thing. Drying the meat overnight causes it to begin to form a pellicle on the surface which acts as a sort of protective barrier and foundation for the bark.

In this case the salt will have neglegible affect on the moisture content deep within. I also have additional information about water content.

The brisket's water content (like ribs) is irrelevant....

Here is why.

"How many of you have found over the years that your brisket was dry because you pulled it before it was done rendering - ie. too soon? Apparently a ****load, from reading posts on various forums every damn day entitled, 'Brisket help.'

Think also about how dry my ribs looked in my WEEP video just before they actually wept? Remember the pig honey?

For those of us that cook on big pits, cooking lots of meat at one time and who incidentally use pits with diverter plates or tuning plates, those of us who use "sound" to cook or at least are aware of the noises their pits make? ---- Ever notice how the pit quiets down after a bit.... you look in and your briskets are all dry? Many are tempted to mop them... don't! A transition is about to take place... temerature is crucial, the mopping disturbs the natural order of things and has limited place at this time in bbq ovens... which are not pits, which is were the mopping belongs.

And you pick up a brisket and notice it has become firm and quite tight. Well, that essentially is the end of the water and its trip out of the brisket. The brisket looses a lot of water in those first few hours. Mostly from the muscle.

So what the heck comes next? There is BOTH fat and Water in fat. There is also collagen. We have talked a lot about collagen in here so I wont go on about that. But the whole stall/weep period is a glorious exchange. Like lesbians swapping body fluids from a MMFF foursome while their male donors lay drained and in exhaustion over on the sweat soaked leather couch.... the briskets make their way to the bedroom and all those fresh sheets. The briskets begin to sweat and drip their juices all over one another, in some cases, licked by searing heat, they may spew and squirt their juices over other briskets. Soon the bed of steel they are laying on is slathers in a coating of this honey, sweat and drips of lubricating fats.... plus whatever injections they may have gotten from their earlier activities with the probes.

The moisture is now NOT going to come from anything you slather on these beauties. It will not come from another injection from those probes that have been standing buy, ready for another stab at it. They are coming from the lesbians themselves, and nothing is wetter and juicier than two hot lesbian briskets at this point. They begin to create and slather themselves with their own honey. When these briskets are through dripping all over each other and squirting, sizzling and spewing and sucking back in all those juices, perhaps swapping and tasting each other's liquid love gravy... well then they will cue the observer as they too lay exhausted, jelly like, soaked and dripping blobs of flesh ready for the ulimate probing once again."

THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS!!!!! Explained from our Beloved Popdaddy 0f Barbefunkoramaque... In his book.... "I am still Big... its the Compact Disks that got Smaller (2009)"

In this case the salt will have neglegible affect on the moisture content deep within. I also have additional information about water content.

The brisket's water content (like ribs) is irrelevant....

Here is why.

"How many of you have found over the years that your brisket was dry because you pulled it before it was done rendering - ie. too soon? Apparently a ****load, from reading posts on various forums every damn day entitled, 'Brisket help.'

Think also about how dry my ribs looked in my WEEP video just before they actually wept? Remember the pig honey?

For those of us that cook on big pits, cooking lots of meat at one time and who incidentally use pits with diverter plates or tuning plates, those of us who use "sound" to cook or at least are aware of the noises their pits make? ---- Ever notice how the pit quiets down after a bit.... you look in and your briskets are all dry? Many are tempted to mop them... don't! A transition is about to take place... temerature is crucial, the mopping disturbs the natural order of things and has limited place at this time in bbq ovens... which are not pits, which is were the mopping belongs.

And you pick up a brisket and notice it has become firm and quite tight. Well, that essentially is the end of the water and its trip out of the brisket. The brisket looses a lot of water in those first few hours. Mostly from the muscle.

So what the heck comes next? There is BOTH fat and Water in fat. There is also collagen. We have talked a lot about collagen in here so I wont go on about that. But the whole stall/weep period is a glorious exchange. Like lesbians swapping body fluids from a MMFF foursome while their male donors lay drained and in exhaustion over on the sweat soaked leather couch.... the briskets make their way to the bedroom and all those fresh sheets. The briskets begin to sweat and drip their juices all over one another, in some cases, licked by searing heat, they may spew and squirt their juices over other briskets. Soon the bed of steel they are laying on is slathers in a coating of this honey, sweat and drips of lubricating fats.... plus whatever injections they may have gotten from their earlier activities with the probes.

The moisture is now NOT going to come from anything you slather on these beauties. It will not come from another injection from those probes that have been standing buy, ready for another stab at it. They are coming from the lesbians themselves, and nothing is wetter and juicier than two hot lesbian briskets at this point. They begin to create and slather themselves with their own honey. When these briskets are through dripping all over each other and squirting, sizzling and spewing and sucking back in all those juices, perhaps swapping and tasting each other's liquid love gravy... well then they will cue the observer as they too lay exhausted, jelly like, soaked and dripping blobs of flesh ready for the ulimate probing once again."

THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS!!!!! Explained from our Beloved Popdaddy 0f Barbefunkoramaque... In his book.... "I am still Big... its the Compact Disks that got Smaller (2009)"

Thats kinda the same way I explain Bible stories to the kids at church, but without the orgy analogy.

So why is MY bark so stellar? Look where coffee, lemon and vinegar is on the scale. What goes on my meat in the end? Lemon Pepper. Also, many Texas cooks use Sour Salt or Citric Acids on their rubs... why... increases the acidity (of what you are putting it on), which in my opinion, releases acidic proteins in the meat to a gooey residue on the outside. But there is a trick of terminology.The things we think of as acidic, Battery Acid, Lemon Juice, Vinegar... are all actually ALKALINE. Remember, pure water has a neutral pH of 7. - pH values lower than 7 are acidic, and pH values higher than 7 are alkaline (basic).

I've got mountains of respect for you as a BBQer. Seriously you are one of my favorite people to read and learn from, so please do not take this as an insult: However, the bolded statement is simply not true. Vinegar and lemon juice, etc are all acidic not alkaline. The PH of lemon juice and vinegar are both between 2 and 3.

Now, on topic: I'm super excited to see this. Brisket looks excellent and I've been waiting to see this recipe since Boshizzle posted the teaser shots the other day :D I may have to try this very soon.

I've got mountains of respect for you as a BBQer. Seriously you are one of my favorite people to read and learn from, so please do not take this as an insult: However, the bolded statement is simply not true. Vinegar and lemon juice, etc are all acidic not alkaline. The PH of lemon juice and vinegar are both between 2 and 3.

Now, on topic: I'm super excited to see this. Brisket looks excellent and I've been waiting to see this recipe since Boshizzle posted the teaser shots the other day :D I may have to try this very soon.

Oh Gosh you are so correct.... funny how I messed this up with the absence of a word. What I mean to say is that when we look on the scale at something more acidic than another, even if it is on the same class (acids versus basic - or alkaline) we refer to it as being more alkaline or acidic than the other, even if the substance is not in that category. For instance...in the case of the examples you gave.... Lemon juice is MORE acidic than vinegar. But when we go the other way... it is tricky because of a couple of reasons.... one is, since it is logarithmic, it throws people off, who typically would assume neutral to be zero, the second reason is our terminology when we go the other way. For instance, vinegar is ten times (3) more alkaline than lemon juice (2).

Somewhere along the line in editing the post I took out some words and probably got more focused on saying something silly and never re-read to see what I was posting.

Its so tricky its hard to write it down and be a smart ass at the same time. Let me know if you feel there are problems with this though.

Hah, I was seriously curious what you were trying to get at there because that one line made me double take so hard :P. Sorry if I came off like a know-it-all, but I work in a building full of labs full of chemists and physicists so proper terminology like that is a habit because it can be necessary (for safety reasons if nothing else).

The rest of that is definitely all true. Especially the bit about the pH scale being confusing if you don't realize it's a non-linear scale .

I actually work IT for these guys, I just absorb alot of knowledge talkin to them, I also share an office with our chemical safety dude...sometimes I feel like my users (aforementioned chemists and physicists) are 7th and 8th graders when it comes to explaining what's wrong with their computers.